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newsblaze writes "The UN Human Rights Council assaulted free expression today, in a 23-11 vote that urges member states to adopt laws outlawing criticism of religions. The proposal came to the UN from Pakistan on behalf of the Organization for the Islamic Conference. There were 13 abstentions. South Korea, Japan, India, Mexico and Brazil, all strong democracies, allowed this to pass by abrogating their responsibility. While the resolution doesn't mention the online world, where does this subject get mentioned most, if not online?" The coverage is from NewsBlaze, which says its mission is to carry important news that other media are not paying attention to. There does not seem to be any other coverage of this vote. Update: 03/29 00:48 GMT by KD: Reader kshade wrote in: "Actually this is covered by conventional media, even FOX news (Google News links). The absentees weren't there because they boycotted the proposal."

is that they treat all nations with relatively equal standing (except the members of the security council).

Only when they only admit freedom-based societies as voting members will it be a body that can work for actual good. Fear-based societies, who mistreat their own people, have no business telling other countries how to treat their people.

What's the difference between the two? If a citizen of a country can stand in what amounts to the town square and criticize his/her government without fear of reprisa

"If a citizen of a country can stand in what amounts to the town square and criticize his/her government without fear of reprisal, it's a freedom-based society."

Yes, and that is exactly what happens with "citizens" of Earth at the UN, of course the only power the UN has got is held by the 5 permanent members who religiously veto their own pawns. If you believe your own freedom rhetoric and follow it to it logical conclusion, you will discard the prosters call to censor the OIC and at the same time applaud the UN for (ironically) allowing the OIC to stand up and speak for themselves.

"If a citizen of a country can stand in what amounts to the town square and criticize his/her government without fear of reprisal, it's a freedom-based society."

Yes, and that is exactly what happens with "citizens" of Earth at the UN, of course the only power the UN has got is held by the 5 permanent members who religiously veto their own pawns. If you believe your own freedom rhetoric and follow it to it logical conclusion, you will discard the prosters call to censor the OIC and at the same time applaud the UN for (ironically) allowing the OIC to stand up and speak for themselves.

I'm sorry. Is the UN good or bad? I ask because in just another thread, you were praising the virtues of the IPCC, another UN body, and here you are claiming that the UN is political body looking out of the well being of the 5 permanent members. So, which is it? Also, you really need to be consistent across threads or else someone might pick up on it and point out your total lack of credibility.

Fools don`t get good ranking in a backstabbing game like politics. We are just witnessing the end of usefulness of what we consider ideals like freedom of expression. For the ruling class they were simply propaganda to push for a globalized and media controlled world. Once served their purpose they are discontinued.

BTW any Christian that takes advantage of such law seems a traitor of the word and example of Jesus IMO.

The UN itself is a joke. If a fourth-rate power like Sudan can tell the UN to pound sand and get away with it then what is the point? It is ironic that the muslim countries like Pakistan, being themselves consistently among the worst human rights abusers on the planet, would chose the UN Human Rights council of all places to criticize the democracies of this world. They should take the board out of their own eye before they reach for the splinter in ours. There is a reason why Pakistan, Sudan, Iran and the rest are underdeveloped, backwards, and inferior to the western democracies in just about every respect and it has a lot to do with freedom of speach, freedom of religion (something obviously lacking in places like Pakistan), and freedom of women to participate in public life.

I don't like the idea of any country not being able to tell the UN to go pound sand. A country's sovereignty is extremely important for freedom, and war is directly at odds with freedom and prosperity. If Sudan is a member country they could be denied membership unless they comply with the UN's charter. I don't like the use of force, especially by a foreign power, to spread an ideology. If the ideology is peace and freedom then force is in conflict with the ideology anyway. Instead set an example; send in peaceful, lawful aid and volunteer educators; publicly deplore the government's actions and try to change public opinion in Sudan. Apply diplomatic pressure to the government and do whatever is possible to peacefully persuade them to change.

Ultimately it is up to the people to change their government, and employ force if they feel it necessary. Not an external force.

Until you accept that the only kind of right is *human* rights, you're not going to solve *anything*. The best you'll manage is sociological tensions and a bunch of divided groups trying to lobby their points.

Forgive my scepticism, but I have to wait until I see a second, less biased source before I take this at face value. The rule of reporting is to get two verifications, and I think I'm going to do just that.

"It is individuals who have rights, not religions," Ottawa's representative told the body. "Canada believes that to extend (the notion of) defamation beyond its proper scope would jeopardize the fundamental right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom of expression on religious subjects."

That's pretty interesting, considering that it's already against the law in Canada to incite hatred on the basis of religion (as well as race, sexual orientation, etc). Here's a link [justice.gc.ca], and some info from a page [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia. What part of the UN proposal does Ottawa object to?

Is there? I personally hate organised religion in all it's forms, and encourage others to do the same. I hate christianty, judaism, islam, and all the others equally. If I encourage others to hate any organised religion in my country (the UK), I'm committing an offence (incitement to relgious hatred).

There is _not_ a whole world of difference. I am _now_ asking people to hate religions, including but not limited to christianity, judaism, and islam. By doing that I am breaking the law. That law is wrong on so many levels.

Inciting hatred in Canada just means rendering it at all more likely that someone would be discriminated against or hurt.

So in fact your "criticism" could very well be "hate speech" in Canada, just if it was ruled to increase the chances that a Christian would be discriminated against or hurt.

In fact, there have been fundamentalist types who have been prosecuted for hate speech for simply posting anti-homosexual selections from the Bible. They'll just make a post like this: "Homosexuals should read Book of Whatever verse whatever which says [homosexuality is an abomination whatever, homosexuals will go to hell]."

Mark Steyn was prosecuted for quoting and agreeing with a Norwegian mullah who said that Muslims would eventually take over Europe. He was cleared though, but probably only because of the huge media pressure.

In fact, there have been fundamentalist types who have been prosecuted for hate speech for simply posting anti-homosexual selections from the Bible. They'll just make a post like this: "Homosexuals should read Book of Whatever verse whatever which says [homosexuality is an abomination whatever, homosexuals will go to hell]."

That brings up the case that religious fanatics who label me 'infidel' or 'damned and dangerous' because I am a skeptical pantheist (or transgressive agnostic or whatever) are inciting hate against me, and against others with a contrary creed.

Not all evangelists are like that, mind you. But some fundies (islamist and christian varieties in particular) are definitely promoting hate of those who don't believe like they do. I wonder how that'll come out in the wash.

People should be allowed to practice whatever religion they ascribe to. I should be allowed to hate those religions and what they stand for, and talk about it, if I want to.

It's that simple. Those who claim christians should not be allowed to practice are wrong IMO, and are themselves violating a whole host of free speech issues. Those who claim I should not be allowed to hate an ethos a particular religion stands for, and speak about it, are also wrong IMO.

in the context the grandparent used, it could be argued he was, 'hating the religion, not the followers

regardless, I think you will find that most people don't hate religion, but rather the effects of religion and faith on logical thought. Science is deeply corrosive to religion, so it can be seen why the church would fear it and in so many places merely say 'your wrong' and when queried on why simply say 'you just are'.

Generally the more education a person receives, the less 'devout' a christian (or other random faith) they become,to this day you still have fundamentalists out there who think that the world is only a few thousand years old, when most educated people would agree it is fairly damn likely it has been around somewhat longer.

People long ago stopped believing in the tooth fairy and santa claws, yet for some reason it is still a serious social taboo to say the chances of 'god' existing are in the same realm. No-one can prove there is no god, just as no-one can prove there is no tooth fairy.

People are free to believe as they wish, as they should be, but people should give thought as to what they believe in, and question their faith in something every now and then. If something is never questioned, then it has little real meaning, since it cannot stand up to scrutiny.

In this particular case it is fairly easy. This bill specifically cites Islam as a religion to be protected. However due to the nature of Islam, it as a religion which is in flagrant contravention of many existing UN and international laws, regarding freedom of religion and equal rights. As such the UN can not protect an organisation whose principles specifically infringe upon the rights of women and even muslins who wish to change religion.

I'm not so sure you are breaking the law. Your hate is directed against religions, not individuals. I think you cross the line when you get personal, that is, you advocate hate and / or violence and against persons having religious beliefs. That's why it's called "human rights", right? You can blast any organization as a whole, as long as you dont point to people who are part of it.

That said, I dont hate religions. I just wish they would get bored waiting for god to show up and trying to control the world meanwhile, and leave us all to play nicer games.

I have never told a parent not to teach their child religion (nor would I ever dream of doing so), I simply wish that we didn't have this societal roadblock to worry about. As for school, religion has no place in the education system. Your education should consist of learning facts about life, working and skills that will help you later in life. Making a child a good person should never be up to a teacher, that is the parent's job!

When I have kids, I am definitely NOT going to bring them up with any religious view. If your child needs to fear a horrible fire-filled afterlife in order to make good decisions in life, then I fear for that child's future. Being a good person should have NOTHING to do with religion, and everything to do with examples set forth by their role models.

I believe very strongly that religion is (always has been, always will be) a scape-goat. "Why does the sun go up and down?" can be answered scientifically (we go around it), or religiously "some guy in a chariot pulls it around." The same goes for Ethics "Why can't I hit Billy?" can be answered simply as "You will go to hell if you are bad" or through and actual heart-to-heart talk with your kid about how such things make people feel and making them actual nice people.

I have always laughed at the term "God fearing Christian" because it implies that the only reason they are good is because they fear retribution.

Sorry for the rant, but I feel insulted every time someone thinks that the belief of their unproven gods are more important than the factual education of a child!

The Canadian law is not about "hatred" per se, in that it's not really about feelings. It's about deliberately inciting others to take directly discriminatory actions toward a particular class of people. That would include a broad range of statements such as, "Don't hire Catholics!" or "Kill all Muslims!"

Criticism is rather different, in that one can, for instance, easily say, "Sharia law is sexist" without deliberately inciting any kind of anti-Muslim action. Et cetera.

I didn't say I believed that statement. However, my point was that religions should not be sacred*. The law currently discriminates on personal beliefs, depending on whether they are religious or not. If you're not ascribing your beliefs to a religion, you've got a lot less rights. If someone turned up to a job interview saying that voices in his head told him he was right for the job, employers would run a mile. That is, as long as it was not religiously inspired : George W Bush claimed that god chose him, and he got a decent job.

Does the the thought of organized religion fill you not just with anger, but with sincere disgust akin to physical sickness?

I've tried a few times now to read the Bible. I think it is something every good skeptic / freethinker / humanist / atheist / etc... should do. Its important that we understand the document followed by the majority of people who have such a large amount of power over our lives. The only problem is, I get physically ill every time I try to read it. Not because I'm angry, but because I am emotionally and physically disgusted when I think of the sheer volume of people who base their lives, and moral fiber, on such a disturbing piece of literature.

I think of the number of people who seem to ignore the multitude of morally troubling, disturbing, often contradictory rules and events portrayed in the Bible that, in effect, shows "God" is not the nice and moral creator the religious would have you believe. I am nauseated that people would willingly follow a being who is often shown as doing, or making his followers do, things that any sane individual would find morally reprehensible.

That being said, I have been trying to read it. I can get a few pages farther each time without feeling like I want to deposit my lunch all over the floor. But it still sickens me that people would willingly believe, and devote their lives to, the moral guidelines and divine behaviors as shown in the Bible.

There's a big difference between criticizing a religion and inciting hatred against religious groups. While its "hate speech" laws may be a little vague, the Canadian government recognizes this distinction.

Ottawa's representative told the body. "Canada believes that to extend (the notion of) defamation beyond its proper scope would jeopardize the fundamental right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom of expression on religious subjects."

In Canada, advocating genocide or inciting hatred against any 'identifiable group' is an indictable offense under the Criminal Code of Canada with maximum terms of two to fourteen years. An 'identifiable group' is defined as 'any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.' It makes exceptions for cases of statements of truth, and subjects of public debate and religious doctrine.

"Defamation of religious is a serious affront to human dignity leading to a restriction on the freedom of their adherents and incitement to religious violence," the adopted text read, adding that "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism."

Restriction of freedom of speech and religion is a serious affront to human dignity leading to violence.

In other news, as I've been saying for years now, religion breeds terrorism. Being a peaceful, tolerant religious person doesn't negate that, or change it. And ignoring that fact simply lets it run rampant. Making laws to let religious intolerance run rampant is equivalent to committing violence in the name of religion.

In other news, as I've been saying for years now, religion breeds terrorism. Being a peaceful, tolerant religious person doesn't negate that, or change it. And ignoring that fact simply lets it run rampant. Making laws to let religious intolerance run rampant is equivalent to committing violence in the name of religion.

In other news, any idealism breeds terrorism.Environmentalists, communists, capitalists, states rights, anti-slavery, unioinists, etc. etc.Whenever people believe in an idea strongly enough they will kill and destroy to protect it.

Anti-defamation laws are more than just hate speech. To say "Kill every dirty (Jew, Moslem, Irishman, your favorite group) in the world" is hate speech. To say "I think (Islam, Christianity, atheism, or your favorit religion) is wrong" is defamation. Notice the not-so-subtle difference. So called "Hate speech" is already interpreted awfully damned loosely, depending on the jurisdiction and the situation. Given an anti-defamation law such as this, you could be imprisoned for disagreeing over a fine poin

Unlike western systems where the laws are held in a single repository.

Ahahahhaha. Right. Single repository. Well, first of all, Most nations use civil codes for their law, and I guess that makes things easier for them, but all Commonwealth nations, and the United States, use the common law system, which is built on, you guessed it, precedent. As for them being all in one place, no. Basically what happens is that each trial results in a decision, which may or may not be written. If the decision is written, then it gets passed along to the reporters, who decide whether it's important enough to be reported. If it gets reported, it's precedent. Note that each country might have several different reporters, any one of which might report the case. For a long time in England, the cases were reported in the newspapers, and those papers were for a long time the main place records were kept.

Of course, a case that's reported may end up being overturned by a higher court later, and on up to the Supreme Court of that jurisdiction, creating three separate cases. Only one will generally end up being precedent (the top one) but sometimes the high court will refer to something the trial court said, so we have to keep all the decisions around.

To complicate things further, different jurisdictions follow their own precedents, so that you could have, in theory at least, a different interpretation of a law for each State and one for the United States, and they would all be precedent, depending on where the disputed harm occurred, and which constitution or statute, state or federal, is being invoked. Now this would be exceedingly rare and unlikely, to have 50+ different precedents on the same matter, as usually the best decisions will sooner or later be adopted by most or all of the states, but it's possible. (I don't know if this situation has ever happened, I'm studying law in Canada)

In the Commonwealth, it can get even more tricky, because even though a case in your own jurisdiction is precedent, cases from other jurisdictions can be persuasive. So in Ontario, Canada, a House of Lords decision from England might have more weight than a lower court decision from Saskatchewan. And in Canada, for a long time, the House of Lords in England was the supreme court, so older English decisions are binding. The oldest English decision I've read in school so far was in Property law, and the decision was from 1210 I believe. It's still good law.

And finally, the trend in most countries, whether they use the common or the civil law, is that they are slowly evolving into hybrids of both. Common laws can always be superceded by statute, and in civil law countries, more and more they are starting to track the decisions made by judges in interpreting the civil codes.

Countries have defamation laws against individuals - i.e., false claims that cause harm to a person.

What is meant by defamation of a religion? And what is so special about religion that it needs a resolution of its own - why not just say that countries should have defamation laws, if that's what they really meant?

Reading about the resolution more closely, it seems they're more concerned with stereotyping and profiling of religious people such as Muslims (e.g., as a result of 9/11), which I agree is a bad thing - but this isn't about defamation laws in the usual sense, and critics are worried that it will cover criticism of religion. Saying "it covers defamation, not criticism" doesn't make sense, since defamation is only defined when it comes to saying false things about a person.

which all civilised countries have outlawed anyway

I know of no countries which have laws against "defaming" entities or beliefs such as "religions".

The essence of any religion, including Christianity, is that logic and reason are less important than faith. There's no question that when convenient, religion would like to go along with logic and reason. The problem is when they conflict with faith, the religious are supposed to go with faith.

ABSOLUTELY NOT, defamation is NOT free speech, any more than fraud is, or perjury.

A defamation is a *false* accusation intended to cause harm. Libel is a form of defamation. Slander is a form of defamation. Logically (I don't know about legally), defamation is a subset of fraud, in that it constitutes an attempt to gain something through false representation. In this sense, perjury, too, is a form of fraud.

Free speech refers only to speech which is 1. not verifiably false (i.e., that is true or that has no fixable truth value), or 2. causes no harm. True speech that causes harm is protected speech. False speech that causes no harm (for example, fiction, or bragging about the fish that got away) is protected speech. Opinion that no one can falsify is protected speech. Anything that you *think* may be true, and had reason to believe was true (for instance, because you thought you checked it), but turns out is not true, is protected speech.

Defamation is an untrue thing you have said with the purpose of harming a person or institution which either a. you know not to be true or b. that you have some reason to suspect is untrue, but choose to say anyway without making a reasonable effort to check to see if it is true.

If I recall correctly (I am not a lawyer) in US law, this is how libel is defined: if it is true, or if there were no malicious intent, or if the person who said it believed it to be true or at least made some reasonable effort to determine its truth and did not find good reason to suspect, it is not libel (and libel is a form of defamation).

What is "defamation"? If I say "fundamentalist Islam is a barbaric and misogynistic cult founded by a mass murderer", is your position that I should go to prison? I'm glad my country isn't "civilized".

Seriously, this isn't a troll, even if you disagree with me. But when is the last time the UN did a thing for the US? We get resolutions of "Give money to undeveloped countries" and "Sure, go to war, but we're not gonna do shiat"...when is the last time they actually did something positive for the US?

An organization that has devolved into "the rich countries should give aid to the poor countries", has stopped being useful to anyone but the leeches. Seriously, can anyone tell me what the UN has done for the US lately, and is there a real reputation hit we'd take from leaving it (as opposed to what we do now, which is to largely ignore it)?

The UN isn't so great for countries with a lot of power, because many of their functions are about limiting and sharing power. On the other hand, there is something to be said, even if you are a superpower, for keeping communications open between countries. The alternative ends up with a lot of dangerous pent up resentment between countries.

The UN helps keep the world stable. A stable world is good for business. What's good for business is good for the US. Most of what the UN does is not headline-grabbing stuff, but it's incredibly important.

Besides, how ridiculous would it be for the UN to be hosted by the only broadly-recognized nation in the world that wasn't a member (which is what the US would be if it pulled out)?

That said, no one takes the UN "Human Rights Council" seriously, because it's currently stacked with nations that have pitiful human rights records. This particular vote has been anticipated for some time now.

If you want to understand better how the world works, I highly recommend reading The Economist.

This is exactly why the UN was founded. The UN exists to protect the post-world war 2 order. It comes out of the direct experience people had before and during world war 2. It is one of the pillars of defense against future wars between states.

The UN is the only place where all the world's countries have diplomats in the same place. It fosters dialoge and discourages conflict. It is the first and best place to diffuse tensions between countries quickly, and is the best place - truly neutral ground - for opposing countries to talk and avoid fights. Can you think of a more effective way to avoid inter-state wars than to encourage dialogue? Because our leaders who lived thorugh and fought ww2 could not. Given that we haven't had a major war since then, they continue to have more experience than us in these matters.

There are some things to criticize about the UN, but calling for an end to the UN because it does nothing for us is analogous to calling for an end to fire departments because all they've ever done is put out other people's fires.

I want to see the actual resolution. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on what exactly the resolution said.

If it is trying to outlaw legitimate criticism, that would obviously be bad. On the other hand maybe the news source is blowing this out of proportion and the resolution merely points out that certain generalizations about groups are harmful to free and open discussion.

On combating defamation of religions, the Council strongly deplored all acts of psychological and physical violence and assaults, and incitement thereto, against persons on the basis of their religion or belief, and such acts directed against their businesses, properties, cultural centres and places of worship, as well as targeting of holy sites, religious symbols and venerated personalities of all religions. The Council noted with deep concern the intensification of the overall campaign of defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general, including the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001. The resolution was passed by a vote of 23 in favour, 13 against and 11 abstentions.

, except that the against and abstentions numbers seem to be reversed. The long version (further down that same page) is:

In a resolution (A/HRC/10/L.2/Rev.1) on combating defamation of religions
, adopted by a vote of 23 in favour, 11 against, and 13 abstentions, the Council strongly deplores all acts of psychological and physical violence and assaults, and incitement thereto, against persons on the basis of their religion or belief, and such acts directed against their businesses, properties, cultural centres and places of worship, as well as targeting of holy sites, religious symbols and venerated personalities of all religions; notes with deep concern the intensification of the overall campaign of defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general, including the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001; expresses deep concern in this respect that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism and regrets the laws or administrative measures specifically designed to control and monitor Muslim minorities; deplores the use of the print, audio-visual and electronic media, including the Internet, and any other means to incite acts of violence, xenophobia or related intolerance and discrimination against any religion, as well as the targeting of religious symbols and venerated persons; emphasizes that, as stipulated in international human rights law, the exercise of freedom of expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to limitations only as provided for by law and are necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others, protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals and general welfare; urges all States to apply and, where required, reinforce existing laws when xenophobic or intolerant acts, manifestations or expressions occur, in order to deny impunity for those who commit such acts; urges all States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general, and to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs; calls for strengthened international efforts to foster a global dialogue for the promotion of a culture of tolerance and peace at all levels; requests the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism to report on all manifestations of defamation of religions, and in particular on the serious implications of Islamophobia, on the

Bullshit. "as well as the targeting of religious symbols and venerated persons", for instance, would seem to suggest that it would be forbidden(if this ever became binding anywhere) to say anything that people didn't like about a religious symbol or figure(even one long dead or mythological, in fact, saying that such a figure is mythological would probably be illegal). That is a Real Serious Problem.

For one thing, all but the blandest religions make enough historical and metaphysical claims that they are mutually contradictory with those of other religions. To simply espouse the doctrines of one would be to, at least implicitly, target the symbols or figures of another. Not to mention the cool crackdowns against atheists and whatnot.

Much of the resolution is bland, inoffensive sounding boilerplate; but parts aren't. It's like butter mixed with broken glass.

"...to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs"

You think we should be legally required to show tolerance for all beliefs? It's an old story, but there are many religions whose beliefs run directly counter to the rights of groups such as women, gay people, and members of other religions. I have no intention of showing respect or tolerance towards someone who pickets the funerals of dead servicemen shouting how this is God's punishment for the gays, or someon

The international community does something incredibly stupid and for once you're happy with the USA's general willingness to thumb its nose at the UN (As opposed to normally facepalming over it). Any law like this in the US would spectacularly crash+burn in the Supreme Court.

The UN is a great idea, but until someone steps up to send their troops into harm's way to stop injustices, it's a toothless debating society. No one particularly cares to send their men to die for someone else, so it never happens. A UN military might help, but do you really want people like Mugabe or Ahmadinejad having a say in what it does?

"GENEVA (Reuters) - A United Nations forum on Thursday passed a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries.
The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted the non-binding text, proposed by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in favor and 11 against, with 13 abstentions."

This was 'passed' by a forum, not the UN General Assembly. It is a non-binding resolution, which is another way to say, "We think this is an idea." That's all, now move along.

A Finnish MP is being prosecuted [jihadwatch.org] because he had the temerity to point out that Mohammed had sex with a nine-year old girl called Aisha, whom he married when she was aged six - details here [wikipedia.org].

The fact is, he's right. From the JihadWatch article:

The collection of traditions of Muhammad that Muslims consider most reliable, Sahih Bukhari, affirms in no less than five places that Aisha was six when Muhammad took her and nine when he consummated the marriage (vol. 5, bk. 58, no. 234; vol. 5 bk. 58 no. 236; vol. 7 bk. 62 no. 64; vol. 7 bk. 62 no. 65; and vol. 7 bk. 62 no. 88). It is also in Sunan Abu Dawud (bk. 41 no. 4915), another of the Sahih Sittah, the six hadith collections Muslims accept as most reliable.

Yes. And Pharohs married their sisters, ancient Spartan's were all pederasts and George Washington kept slaves.

Yep. And the thing is that you and I reject all of those practices. We recognise them as immoral nowadays.

However - and this is the crux of the matter as far as blasphemy laws go - Islamic teaching is that Mohammed is the ideal role model. Because he was a Prophet, he was ipso facto incapable of committing any but the most minor category of sin (see the thread on Turn to Islam that I linked to f

WTF? Seriously? Have you not read the news - eight year old girls filing for divorce in Saudi Arabia, & Imams throughout the world fighting Governments that are trying to introduce minimum ages of consent?

Sanaâ(TM)a (AsiaNews) - Some Yemeni religious figures have launched a "fatwa" against the law recently approved by Parliament that sets the minimum age for marriage at 17. The statement, signed by the rector of Al-Eman University, Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, and by representatives of the party Islamic Islah, is aimed at eliminating the minimum age limit.

The question of the minimum age for marriage in Yemen was brought to the attention of world public opinion last April, following the case of Nojud Mohammed Ali, an 8-year-old girl who requested and obtained a divorce after being forced to marry a 30-year-old man.

Yes. For example this is the definition of "statutory rape": "sexual intercourse with a person who is below the statutory age of consent"

So, if there's no statutory age of consent, there's no rape. Simple as that. What you want to say is that is "bad" regardless of law, you only use the word "rape" because is a loaded word. That's OK with me, just make sure you don't confuse the concepts in you head, that's worse than just trying to confuse other people using words that don't apply.

Yeah, you've got to outlaw any and all critical comments about religion. Aside from the very touchy Muslims who view almost everything said by anybody else as an Insult to Islam that you must Now Die For, all these other religions who all claim to have God (Muslin == Allah) on their side and that the truth is with them are far too fragile to withstand any actual questioning. Except for Scientology, who fights back against the least bad word in the nastiest ways possible, and the Muslims who riot in the streets and end up killing each other because someone drew a cartoon of The Prophet halfway around the world, all these strong religions with both God and The Truth on their side as just way too fragile to stand up against the least little wind of discourse.

WE MUST DO THIS NOW! POLITICAL CORRECTNESS DEMANDS IT OF US!

In fact, in order to comply with this you've got to remove this post posthaste!

Pakistan and other Islamic nation members have been consistently proposing this for years and years.

I really wished they would give it up. Religion is a choice that people make. And as such it should be open to criticism. It is really as simple as that. If yours is a true and good religion, it can withstand criticism... right?

Am I a racist, bigot, asshole? A promulgator of hatred... or am I just a dude trying to be funny while exercising his right to free speech?

There seems to be a large disconnect with speech and free in a goodly chunk of the world, particularly in nations where Islam is the dominant religion. But I guess the UN thinks I shouldn't be making remarks like that because that would be criticism.

I believe that this resolution is aimed at least in part at secular attacks on religion. As Gandhi said, "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

We atheists have been given the short shrift for a very long time now. First we were burned at the stake, then persecuted, and now we're gradually gaining mainstream acceptance now. We've gone from Bush the Elder claiming that atheists should be considered neither citizens nor patriots [infidels.org] to Obama including non-believers in his inauguration speech. Perhaps in my lifetime, it'll be politically feasible for an atheist to hold an elected office.

Does this mean I can't criticize the scientologists any more?
Oh I forgot. I already can't.
But even so, I think the point is valid. In the UK, we have a member of Parliament who claims his religion is "Jedi". Will it be illegal to criticize him?

in a 23-11 vote that urges member states to adopt laws outlawing criticism of religions

As a Christian, this is unnerving. Contrary to popular belief, Christianity has a long history of criticizing the religious status quo. It was a major aspect of Jesus' message.

Another dangerous aspect of it is when church and state are combined, criticizing state will be seen as the same as criticizing religion (and vice versa) thus allowing the state to commit more human rights violations.

So if atheism a religion, then any claim of a god's existence would be criticism and thus disallowed.

VICTORY!!!!

(but seriously, this is why you have to pay attention to diplomacy - as soon as the UN is built, some civilization off the edge of the map can suddenly win the game with a single vote if enough cultures are annoyed with your behavior)

I know it's become something of a sport here to criticize the editors, but talk about being asleep at the wheel here...

If you do about 90 seconds of research here (which is about what I did), you would see that:1) this is a non-binding resolution. i.e. it doesn't mean jack.2) a similar resolution has been proposed (by Pakistan) and passed (by the so-called human rights council) every year since 19993) the number of countries supporting the resolution has actually decreased significantly every year for the past few years.

In other words, in terms of the actual effect this will have on anyone at all, this is about as non-news as it gets. If there is any news here at all, it is that this type of proposal has been rapidly losing support on the world stage lately. In particular, almost every major religious group except for Islam (and even many subgroups of Islam) have spoken out against such a measure.

I've read a lot of comments here along the lines of this is a heinous violation of my rights and the UN should be disbanded/whipped/shot, etc. What most people seem to have missed is this is not LAW, it's a RESOLUTION and is in no way binding to anyone. All it does is to encourage member countries to pass a law as described. Any country that would be swayed by this most likely already has such a law in place. The rest of us will just ignore it.

The UN provides a forum to grandstand and debate meaningless resolutions, and that's incredibly valuable. Don't underestimate the role of posturing and politics in military violence. When countries can have their complaints heard by the world media they're less likely to use military threats to get attention. The last thing I want is the UN to have "teeth," I prefer it to remain a form of international family therapy.